What Did You Say?
by MrValravnen
Summary: The Doctor takes Donna on a little day trip after the unsettling experience on the Oodsphere, but something goes wrong in the translation circuit, and the Doctor and Donna are left to decode a mystery without being able to understand each other. Rated T for possible violence and language First fic!


"Barcelona!" the Doctor exclaimed from the other side of the control panel. They had just come back from the Oodsphere, and Donna was starving for some summer heat, so that statement had majorly improved her mood.

"Oh, finally. I thought you'd never take me somewhere warm, you fat lot of good alien," that gained a little "Oi!" from the Doctor. "Oh, put a cork in it. You haven't landed us anywhere besides cold, cold, and colder! Save for Pompeii, and that wasn't exactly a walk in the park, now, was it?" she scolded, "What good is a time-traveling alien if he can't even get us somewhere where we won't either freeze or burn to death?"

The doctor frowned, and looked down a bit. He actually seemed offended, if only a bit. "Oi, I can't control what weather every planet we land on have! Well, I can, but where's the fun in that?" They smiled at each other, laughing lightly. "Though, I did always want to go to Barcelona," she said as she moved over to where he was standing at the control panel.

"Nice save, Donna," he grinned.

"Well, can't have a moody Martian running around, now can we?"

"Still not a Martian!" he exclaimed, as he began running around the control panel, bopping several levers and pushing several buttons. "Barcelona. Took a friend there, once, actually. Rose, remember Rose?"

"Yeah, she was the other one you kidnapped," she teased. He gave her a warning look while she smiled in triumph, but he kept going. "I had promised to take her for a long time, but at the time she didn't exactly trust me as well, due to some, erm... changes." he trailed out. "To me." Donna looked at him, questioning, but before she could ask him what he meant, she was cut off by him. "But!" he exclaimed, "I took her there, eventually! Boy, did she have a laugh. Told her the dogs with no noses would amuse her." That gained him a skeptical look from the ginger, "Hell, they amuse me! I can travel to Barcelona as many times as I want, but the dogs with no noses always get me." He smiled with the memory. Donna was not as impressed.

"So, what you're saying is, that there's dogs with no noses in Barcelona."

"Yes?"

"Are we talking about the same Barcelona here?"

"Well, which Barcelona are you talking about?"

"What do you mean which? There's only one Barcelona!" she shouted. This man could be bloody confusing sometimes. The Doctor just smiled, and continued to press some buttons, and the TARDIS started wheezing through the Time Vortex. He looked up from his steering, and grinned smugly at her. "Pinwheel Galaxy, in the constellation of Ursa Major." He pulled a lever to end his sentence. It was a planet. Of course it's a planet, everything's a planet with this sodding son of a b-

"Donna Noble," he started, "welcome to Barcelona!"

Donna eyed him warily. Travelling with the Doctor was still new for her, and for all she knew they could have ended up in Switzerland, or Pluto, or Planet Freeze-Your-Buttocks-Off. She didn't even know if the skinny alien had a driver licence for this thing, but when she had asked him about it, he had just brushed her off, and continued to babble on about neurotransmittable ignition beams, or whatever bollocks he had been talking about.

Noticing her hesitation, the Doctor raised a single eyebrow. He walked over to her, and as he did, Donna crossed her arms defensively.

"Are you alright, Donna?" he asked her. She didn't know what to answer. Was she alright? She didn't feel bad, but when she thought about it, she didn't exactly feel well, either. The whole experience with the Ood had made an impact on her, and to be honest, she felt a bit... uncomfortable. To be completely honest, all she wanted right now was to go home and get a hug from her gramps. She remembered when she had lost Lance, she had broken down at the dinner table, and Wilf had taken her in his arms. "Be strong, Donna," he had told her. "The world has its challenges, its rivers to cross. But once you cross them, you are on the other side, and thus, you can keep going. And that is what you need to do right now." She sighed a bit at the memory. He was right, dwelling on the past wasn't going to make the future easier. And she was travelling with a great, big, loud-mouth of an alien, even! If life was gonna be dull for her, it certainly wouldn't be now.

"Yeah," she nodded to him in reply, "yeah, I'll be alright." He grinned again at the response, took her hand, and pulled her out of the TARDIS' doors.

The sight that greeted her was definitely not Planet Freeze-Your-Buttocks-Off.

"This is extraordinary!" If you'd asked her ten minutes ago, she had been miffed, but right now, Donna was busy feasting her eyes in the landscape upon them. The sky was violet, with a faint breeze swooshing down through their hair. They were standing on a small field, surrounded by knee-high, teal grass, bright red flowers dotting the landscape. Donna gave out a small laugh. She had been on alien land before, so she didn't understand why she felt so amazed, but she did. The Oodsphere had been different from Earth in many ways, but to her, it really just seemed like a trip to Antarctica. This, was so...

"So alien," she said.

"Well, we are several light years away from Earth." Donna turned around to see the Doctor stepping up behind her, hands in his pockets and a smile on his lips. He joined her to enjoy the view as well.

"Alcor 6, also known as Barcelona. Well-known for its main inhabitants, the Hraki," He looked over at Donna, "the dogs with no noses," he quickly added, when he got no light of recognition from said ginger. "Ah," she replied before he had finished.

"... and its cheese! If you asked me, they'hla t'hae siet hieai e' elentsê."

"I'm sorry?" Donna blinked.

"I said, they have the best cheese in the galaxy," he repeated, seemingly oblivious. "I'd even go as far as to say they have the best cheese for several galaxies! The only time I've ever tasted something that came close, was back in the Cassiopeia constellation, where-"

"No, no, no, no, hold it, Spaceman, back up a bit. What was that alien gibberish you spewed out back there?"

The Doctor furrowed his brows, looking like a confused puppy. "About the cheese?"

"No, you dimwit, before that!"

The Doctor looked away from her, clearly puzzling something together under that sticky-up hair of his. Had he not noticed that? Was that a normal thing, him speaking hullaballoo without thinking about it? Though, when she thought about it, from what she had seen from the Doctor, this was not something that took the top of the weirdness-cake. "Nevermind, must be my imagination." She decided to drop it. "You're putting me out of focus with that gob of yours!"

Despite her trying to lighten the mood, when the Doctor returned his gaze on her again, he still had that de-puzzling look on his face. It made Donna feel a bit uncomfortable. She tried to look around, to communicate that she was not interested in keeping up the subject. After a good few second of his gaze prying at her, Donna had enough. She whipped her head towards him.

"What!?" she yelled. Normally she would have thrown a sharp comment at him about keeping his eyes to himself to throw him off, but she was simply not in the mood right now.

He continued to stare at her for a few seconds longer, before inhaling sharply, and continuing like everything was just jolly good.

"I say we go to town, try a few cheese samples," he began circling around her, hands on his back, still talking, "have a little chat with the locals, see what's hot news, and afterwards," he bowed down on her level and looked her right in the eyes, followed by a big grin, "go take a few hours in the local spa."

All former irritation immediately left Donna's face after that word.

"You mean they have a spa?" she bawked.

The Doctor pulled his lips up into an even bigger grin. "And one of the best ones, of that! Now, see, the town's over there," he pointed to a forest in the horizon. Donna had previously just thought it had been an ordinary forest of this planet, but now that she looked again, she could see some faint lights in the palm-like leaves of what looked like to be trees. "If I'm correct, - and I always am... okay, usually am," he said after a quick glance to Donna told him, that she was hardly convinced. He continued. "If we give it a brisk walk, we'll be there in 30 minutes. 40, tops." He joined his hands behind his back, and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. "What do you say, Miss Noble? Up to it?" He sent her a gleaming grin. She sent him a little squint. Skinny as he was, that man could charm.

She walked up in front of him, and placed her hands on her hips like a mother who was very cross with her child.

"Only," she began, "if you're paying." With that, she turned around on her heels and started walking towards the town, leaving the Doctor behind with a smile on his face. He then ran up to catch up with her. She seemed to notice that he was within hearing range again. "Oh, and if I see you catching one glimpse, I will personally smack that gob of your face, understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, a little shaken by the ginger's temper. The Doctor knew better than to challenge Donna's threats.


End file.
